


Destiny is Calling (Pick Up The Damn Phone)

by Definately_not_a_cat, gaytriangle, madasahatter (gaytriangle)



Category: Merlin (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Immortal Merlin (Merlin), Merlin goes through it, Merlin is So Done (Merlin), Merlin is a Little Shit (Merlin), Panic Attacks, Whump, obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29025153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Definately_not_a_cat/pseuds/Definately_not_a_cat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytriangle/pseuds/gaytriangle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytriangle/pseuds/madasahatter
Summary: Arthur dies.Camelot burns.And yet, despite it all, Merlin survives.He persists, long after his friends have perished, experiences the rise and fall of empires, watches man walk on the moon- but Sherlock Holmes?Meeting him may cost Merlin everything (Including, predictably, his sanity).
Relationships: Merlin (Merlin) & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Merlin (Merlin)
Comments: 70
Kudos: 115





	1. The one where Molly Hooper gets her moment in the sun, as she deserves- wait where is she going, no, come back

It was the same uneventful morning as it usually was at 221B. John woke up early to the sound of the busy street outside and pulled his complaining bones out of bed. Stumbling into the kitchen, he brewed a cup of tea more out of habit and the deep need to hold something warm to drag him out of the clutches of sleep. With his mug of deep brown elixir (of the earl grey variety, not the alcoholic unfortunately) securely in hand, and several gulps in his body, he meandered over to the living room window.

The London that greeted him below was coated in a layer of newly settled frost and ice. A brisk wind blustered down the streets and hurried the pedestrians on their morning commute. John snorted to himself. It was a far cry from the searing heat of the desert where he left enemy corpses, a couple pints of blood and his childhood innocence behind. He clutched the mug and shrugged his worn knitted jumper a little tighter around his frame. Looking around the warm apartment, he decided it too was a far cry from the cold and lonely apartment he had returned to after his discharge. The fact that his life had turned around so quickly in a matter of months was almost unbelievable, and it was all because Sherlock had stepped into it. Well, stepped wasn’t quite right. Violently inserted himself would be more accurate. John personally felt considered himself handcuffed against his will to the lovable sociopath on the rollercoaster ride of a lifetime- no telling where or when he would get off, but at this point he wasn’t sure he even wanted to.

John shook himself out of his self-pity. Setting his mug down on the tea table, he scooped yesterday’s unfinished newspaper abandoned on the floor. John flopped onto his armchair beside the fireplace just as Sherlock made his daily morning appearance. 

“Bored,” Sherlock announced by way of a greeting as he flounced into the room and collapsed onto the couch. “John. John. Joooooohhhhnn.” John resisted the urge to sigh, instead opting to glare at his flatmate over the top of the paper. For three whole beats there was silence before a hopeful, “Do we have a new case?”

“No.”

“Anything in the newspaper?”

“Not that I’ve read in the last five seconds of peace you’ve grace me with,” John deadpanned as he scanned the headlines.

Sherlock sighed, got up and trudged in resignation to the window where he picked up his violin and half-heartedly plucked its strings. His sullenness was terminated by the shrill tune of Sherlock’s ring tone.

Now, John mightn’t be the super genius his socially inept friend was, but even he knew this hour was far too early for any sane person to be awake. No, it had to be someone from the yard, Lestrade judging by the pitch of Sherlock’s eyebrows as he listened, and the gleam that entered his eyes as the murmur of the voice across the phone came to stop.

“Of course, we’ll head there now.” Sherlock paused while putting down his violin. “Is Anderson on forensics?” Sherlock's face twisted with annoyance with the reply. John snorted. No prizes on guessing what the answer was then.

“Fine,” Sherlock snapped, “I'm bringing somebody who knows what they're talking about, in that case. Goodbye George.” Sherlock hung up with a flourish and slapped the newspaper down out of John’s hands. “Come on John, we’ve got a case.”

John frowned at the paper as it fluttered to its previous place on the floor. “I was reading that,” he mumbled and pushed himself out of his seat. Sherlock was already at the door, pulling on his coat and scarf. John joined him moments later as he practically skipped down the stairs to the front door. Throwing it open, Sherlock stepped onto the path and hailed a cab.

***

“So, are you actually going to tell me what's going on or just keep me in the dark?” John grumbled. 

It had been five minutes since they had left their apartment, the cab slowly tuckering through London traffic. In those five minutes, Sherlock had sat into the cab, directed the driver to an address far outside the inner city and then suddenly got a brainwave mid-sentence. Since then, he had been typing on his phone, desperately searching for something on the internet.

It was strange seeing him so excited John decided. Sherlock’s bright eyes were the clearest he had seen since their last case, and his face was scrunched in concentration. Christ, he was practically _vibrating_ with energy. Still, John mused, this was their first time out of the flat in two weeks _._ He was allowed some leeway-

“Shhhhhhh big brain people are thinking.” Sherlock shushed him.

Never mind. That insufferable prick deserved the entirely unintentional kick in the shin he was on the receiving end of not seconds later. Throwing John a glare, Sherlock he dialled a number and lifted the phone expectantly to his ear.

“Molly, it's Sherlock.”

John heard a groan across the line before Molly’s voice laced with sleep answered. “What's wrong Sherlock? I’ve got the morning off.”

“I need you to come to a crime scene.” Sherlock continued, breezing past her grumbling. “The inspector mentioned something that something that reminded me of poisoning symptoms,” he paused, “…unfortunately, Anderson is on forensics and I wouldn't trust him to know the difference between an ass’s head and backside.”

John could hear a well-worn sigh from the phone. “It’s my morning off Sherlock. Besides, I was out last night so there's no way I'll be awake enough to focus at a crime scene.”

“Hangover Molly?” John called from across the cab.

A tired chuckle reverberated in the phone. “The hangover from hell. Remind me to never go out with Jim for drinks again John.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the exchange and opened his mouth to redirect the conversation before Molly beat him to the punch.

“Listen, I’d be about as useful as Anderson in my state. Text me the details of the crime scene and I'll send them on to my co-worker Colin.”

Sherlock tried to protest, but Molly was clearly in no mood to listen to him. “No Sherlock, you can’t change my mind. Play nice for me will you? Ok byyyeeeee.”

The hang tone beeped angrily in Sherlocks ear. He yanked it away, scowling in annoyance and glared at the phone. John swallowed a laugh. Sherlock working with Anderson was explosive on its own, but Anderson and a new guy? This would definitely get interesting. Speaking of the socially inept detective, he quickly tapped out the case details to Molly and slipped his phone into his coat pocket. Turning to John, he finally began to fill in his irritated companion on the information he had received on the case from Lestrade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Cats brainchild of multiple years. I’m... mostly here to force them to publish it. - Hat  
> Nonsense. You're also here for my entertainment - Cat


	2. The one where Sherlock is a feral cat, swiping at the ankles of those that DARE enter his territory

John and Sherlock’s tiny black taxi traversed through the sardine can streets of inner city London, onto the quieter, dusty roads in the city limits before valiantly squeezing its way through the winding cattle paths that made up the majority of rural England. Eventually (after several wrong turns and some forceful direction on Sherlock’s part) it puttered to a stop beside an unassuming field. Well, except for the bright yellow police tape. And perhaps the police and forensic crew crowding around the mangled car, trampling grass now torn up with tyre treads and the boot prints of an invading army – err, the police. Oh and of course there was the dead body laying on what remained of the grass …

All in all, this was the most remarkable unassuming field in the entirety of England. Probably.

As John attempted to convince the driver that waiting for them in the middle of nowhere was worth his time, Sherlock stepped out of the car and took in the scene before him like a cat would take in a cornered mouse. At first glance, it looked like a classic car crash. There were deep tyre tracks in the grass where the car had careened from the road into the field. The bonnet of the car had crumpled from the force of its collision with the stone wall, which made the airbags go off and forced the car’s occupant to spill out onto the grass.

However, there were some notable inconsistencies with the car crash assumption. For one, car crash victims don’t usually leave their fatal car crash without a scratch. It is also quite rare for a car crash to cause foam to erupt from their mouth like a karmic spirit was punishing them for their reckless driving, leaving the incompetent motorist flat on their back. Sherlock hummed as he allowed himself a moment to muse on the scene. Interesting.

He was interrupted from said musings by John’s grumbling as he returned from his bargaining.

“Greedy bastard nearly emptied my pockets,” he grouched. He glared accusingly at Sherlock before adding, “You’re paying for the ride back.”

Sherlock smirked as he held up the yellow police tape that (rather unnecessarily) corded off the scene from the rest of the non-existent rural public. John ducked under with another mumbled curse before Sherlock followed him. They strode towards the blue-and-red police lights that bleached the picture-perfect landscape with a sickly glow. This also happened to be the source of Anderson’s monotonous drone as he filled in Lestrade on his findings and assumptions.

“….here on holiday from Ireland. Yeah, we found an Irish passport in is bag. He was attacked and choked to death, you can see the scratch marks on his neck…”

Before Sherlock could even roll his eyes at the already incorrect assumptions made, he was greeted by Donovan with all the usual grace and elegance of a stampeding elephant.

“What are you doing here, freak?”

Sherlock tried for his winning smile. It looked more like a crocodile smile, but who could blame him? He was rather out of touch with social niceties, but even he could tell that greeting hardly deserved better. “Detective Donovan! A pleasure to see you as always.”

Sally scowled in reply before he continued, “Believe it or not, I was _invited_ here by the good inspector to look over a crime scene which, _apparently,_ has you all bonking your heads together.” Sherlock dramatically laid his hands on said inspectors’ shoulders and clutched him as if greeting an old friend. “Never fear, Lestrade, your saviour has arrived. I’m here now.”

Lestrade sighed and brushed off Sherlock’s grip with the ease of long-suffering practise. “Could you two have some respect! In case you didn’t notice, there is a literally dead body at our feet,” he snapped.

On cue, all five looked down at the lifeless corpse. The corpse stared back with glassy eyes. None of them even blinked before the bickering continued.

“Seems like we’ve all been desensitised to dead bodies at this point.” John muttered.

Lestrade cleared his throat to get their attention before continuing. “I’ve had Anderson look over the body and give me his findings, but I thought I’d get a-” he trailed off looking behind John. His eyebrows furrowed. “Did anyone bring a date to the crime scene?”

All heads turned as a scrawny, black-haired young man rounded their field’s hedge and ducked under the crime scene tape. The brown satchel over his shoulder bounced up and down as he hurried to the group, his scarf flapping around him. He literally fell into the conversation as he managed to trip over nothing and faceplanted into the frozen grass as he reached them. The group regarded him with bewilderment. Well not entirely. Anderson regarded him with poorly disguised maniacal amusement. The interloper groaned in pain as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. Regrettably for the young man, he landed roughly two feet from the head of a cadaver, giving him an unparalleled vantage point of the victim’s lifeless eyes, framed by the remnants of his car.

Sherlock watched with amusement as the man yelped and reeled back. His eyes flashed as they travelled from the body to the destroyed car - was that fear? At a car? Sherlock frowned. That made no sense. Maybe John was right, maybe he did need to get better at the whole _people_ thing.

John was the first to recover from the intrusion. Shaking himself, he stooped down and helped up the man. “Easy there soldier, you quite literally came face to the face with death there.” John said, brushing the man down.

The man smiled at John gratefully before turning to the rest of the group. “I'm so sorry I'm late, the taxi driver dropped me off a few miles back. He refused to drive any further on that shoddy excuse for a twenty first century road.”

When the only reaction he got was blank faces, he cleared his throat awkwardly and added, “Molly Hooper called me saying that I was needed to do some guy called Anderson’s job?”

“Ah. You must be Colin then.” Sherlock surmised as he extended his hand to shake Colin’s. He then crouched beside the body, beckoning for Colin to join him and continued, pointedly ignored Anderson’s spluttering rage.

“Some aspects of the victim’s state the inspector described on the phone seem indicative of poisoning.” He gestured to the dried spittle and foam around the corpses mouth and stood. “I need you, as Molly so eloquently put it, to do Anderson’s job and identify the murder weapon,” he smirked.

At that, Anderson’s spluttered rage intensified. Used to this reaction when detective and forensics officer were forced to coexist, he was ignored by all parties. Well, except Colin, bless his soul. Colin gave him an apologetic smile. Lestrade nodded, reaching into his pocket for his notepad. “Considering all of you are looking into this in one way or another, I’ll give you all a quick debrief of the situation.”

He flicked to the right page and cleared his throat. Colin glanced around in bewilderment as John, Sherlock and the two detectives stepped back. The reasoning became abundantly clear when Colin was yanked to his feet by John, narrowly avoiding the haphazard pacing of Lestrade.

“Last night at 20.15 hours we received a call from this man’s wife claiming that her husband was dying.” Lestrade began. “Apparently, she had received a call from him on the hour, as she usually did on his drive home from work, but within ten minutes she heard him choking. He managed to tell her he was going to pull over-“ he stared pointedly at the tyre marks leading to the road, “-before the line went dead.”

“She waited for 5 minutes. When he didn’t call back, she called us.” He snapped the notebook shut as he came to a stop in front of the body.

“We found the body this morning. Just got confirmation that he’s Darren O’Shaughnessy, aged 47.” Beckoning for an officer fiddling with a plastic bag, he continued. “I sent some people over to pick up his wife after we found him, but she’s gone.”

Lestrade accepted the bag the officer handed him and fished a phone out of it. “When we got here, this was clutched in his hands. He sent one last text to his wife before succumbing to whatever killed him.”

“What did the text say?” Sherlock asked, deftly snatching the phone out of Lestrade’s hands and smashing the on button. The cracked screen feebly flickered into life.

Lestrade recovered from the interruption with practiced grace. “See that’s what we can’t figure out. He sent it in some other language, a cypher or something.”

“A cypher you say.” Sherlock mused. “Fortunately Lestrade, I’m not you. No code is able to withstand me.” He finally managed to unlock the barely functioning phone and immediately searched for the text. Once the detective found it, he frowned. A beat of expectant silence followed.

“This is unreadable garbage.” He muttered and tossed the phone over his shoulder to John who fumbled to catch it. He looked at the message in turn and squinted. It had some English letters, but the letter patterns were completely wrong, and some characters had odd lines over the vowels.

Colin leaned over John’s shoulder and snorted. “Unreadable my ass, that’s just Irish.”

John, Lestrade and Sherlock turned to him in shock. “You can read this?” John asked.

Colin laughed nervously and rubbed his neck. “Well, I learned Irish as a kid in school. It was a long time ago so I’m a bit rusty, but I could probably translate most of it.”

Anderson rolled his eyes. “Alright, smarty pants. Can we _please_ get back to the strangulation victim? some of us are freezing over here.” He rustled his white forensic jumpsuit emphatically and shifted on his feet. The frozen grass crunch in sympathy beneath his boots.

Unsurprisingly, Sherlock snorted at Anderson’s whining. However, what was surprising was the second voice that joined Sherlock’s as he corrected Anderson.

“He wasn’t strangled.”

Heads swivelled to gawk at Colin, who was now crouched beside the body. John blinked. Wasn’t he right at his side only a second ago? Colin looked up from his examination of the corpse with a start and paled (impressive given his, ahem, _British complexion)_. Clearly he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Uh, I overheard you earlier,” he coughed nervously. “The scratches weren’t from the victim fighting off an attacker, they were self-inflicted as he choked to death on some kind of poison.”

Unnerving silence followed. The only sound was the crunch of the grass beneath the Colin’s feet as rose and he shifted his weight under the gaze of the assembled. Lestrade looked to Sherlock for confirmation. After a moment’s hesitation, Sherlock inclined his head with narrowed eyes. 

“As our new colleague just kindly informed us, he was indeed poisoned,” Sherlock began slowly, “which raises the question, who poisoned him?”

Appearing to recover from the break from the usual script, Sherlock crouched beside the body and started picking at the clothes.

“He was a father of two girls judging by the hair visible on his jacket, too low to be his wife’s, but too long and high up on his person to be a pet’s.” He extended a hand and plucked a bunch of hairs from the cuff of the body’s trousers. “The hair around his feet indicate he has two small dogs at home.”

Colin muttered something under his breath. Sherlock ground his teeth and glared at him. “Care to share with the group?” he snapped.

“Three.” Colin coughed awkwardly. “Two Pomeranians and a terrier judging from the different hair types and their quantities.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Three. Dogs.” Rising from his crouch he gestured to the corpses’ clothes. “Going by his cheap but formal attire, plump figure and well-worn seat on his pants, I’m going to guess he had a much-needed office job. He seemed to suffer from insomnia, notice the bags under his eyes and signs of premature aging. Could be a result of the late nights at the office to pull in some overtime.”

Sherlock walked over to the wrecked car and opened the door. Inside, he reached for the rucksack in the backseat and pulled out two passports. “He has both an English and Irish passport on him. Considering that, he’s probably English born, moved to Ireland and is back here on business.”

Colin coughed. Sherlock abandoned the civilities. “Do you have a problem with what I said?” he snapped as he reeled around to face him.

“Oh no! Not at all! Great, er, detective-ing going on there.” Colin vaguely gestured to the corpse. Sherlock nodding, satisfied, and turned back to the body.

“It’s just that I’d personally disagree.” Colin rushed out. “People that aren’t subjected to the Irish school system aren’t usually well versed enough to text in a nearly dead language,” he explained. “So, you know, I’d say it’s more likely that he’s originally from Ireland and moved here to provide his family with an income. In my opinion.”

Sherlock was frozen, still facing the body, his shoulders rigid. Tension crackled in the icy morning air. Sensing an imminent disaster, Lestrade stepped in.

“Speaking of the text, would you mind translating it to save us the trouble later?”

John handed the phone to Colin and nodded in encouragement.

Quickly scanning the text, Colin read it aloud. _“‘Aoife mo grá, tóg na páistí agus téigh go Gaillimh. D’aimsigh M linn.’”_ Colin paused, his brow furrowed. “It says: Aoife my love, take the kids and go to Galway. M has found us.”

“I think we can safely assume that M is responsible for this.” John gestured vaguely to crashed car and body. “Could M be some codename of an assassin?”

Colin paused. “I’m not sure, it seems more likely that he’s the mastermind of this than the actual assassin themselves. Whoever M is though, this is a nasty piece of work.” He walked over to the corpse and pulled out a swab from his bag.

John took this opportunity to glance at Sherlock. He had moved, finally, no longer in his shocked self imposed rigor mortis but was now observing Colin’s movements with speculative burning eyes that could have melted the frosted grass had he directed them there instead. John opened his mouth to ask him whether Colin was right before deciding against it. If Sherlock had seen a fault in his reasoning, he would have already voiced his (probably insult ridden) thoughts. Deciding that it may be better for his long term health to let this play out, John closed his mouth and turned back to the crime scene. Lestrade had clearly come to the same conclusion. He cocked an eyebrow in John’s direction and glanced quickly to Colin’s crouched form. John shrugged back helplessly.

Colin stood from his squatted position and cleared his throat. “I can say with almost certainty that this man was poisoned by strychnine which led to death by asphyxiation. The obvious pointers of strychnine poisoning are present, extreme convulsions before death followed by almost immediate post-mortem rigor, leaving him in this harrowing shape,” he motioned to the man’s arched back and frozen features.

“Strychnine is a component used in rat poison, but purified strychnine is quite tricky to get your hands on, the purer, the rarer. It’s a colourless, odourless powder with a bitter taste like rotten almonds.” He explained. “He would have noticed it if it was added to something he ate, unless it was in something with a strong flavour like…” he trailed off as his eye traced the inside of the crashed car. Silently, he slipped over to the front door and reached inside the shattered window. His arm returned with a paper travel cup clutched gingerly between his fingers.

Colin offered the cup to Sherlock, who took it and opened the lid. Swiping a finger across the bottom of the cup, he pulled it out covered in a coat of colourless sludge. He closed his eyes in resignation.

“Coffee.” He finished Colin’s thought. The detective handed the cup to a passing officer who held it like he was suddenly handed a very angry bear cub, with mother bear in a deerstalker right behind him.

“But how did M get the strychnine into the coffee?” John asked, his face scrunched in confusion.

“The victim was a creature of habit; he called his wife at the same time every evening on his way home from work. It’s likely that he got coffee at the same petrol station every day.” Colin supplied.

Sherlock walked around Colin and swiped his dry finger across the roof. “There’s a coffee stain on the roof and a full tank of petrol in the car.” Sherlock added. “The killer likely watched him for a long time, observed his movements until he saw an opportunity to strike, which he got when Mr. Shaughnessy left his coffee on the roof of his car when stopping for petrol.”

“Ok,” John nodded, “that all makes sense, but what I don’t understand is why this killer went to all the effort of having strychnine in the victim’s coffee when it could have so easily failed.”

Lestrade squinted at John, hoping his point would become clearer. In his defence, John was the only member of this conversation that might actually clarify anything. “What do you mean?”

John shook his head. “I can think of countless times where I’ve bought coffee at a petrol station only to end up not drinking it. I’ve spilt it, forgotten it on my roof, or just didn’t drink it, the list goes on. They clearly planned this meticulously, had watched the guy for months, and then decided to go with poisoned coffee which may or may not be ingested? It seems sloppy.”

Sherlock frowned. John, unfortunately, had a point. The detective conceded that his friend had a fraction of a braincell in fleeting moments of clarity. (Sherlock would be taking full credit for those moments, thank you very much. Hanging around a genius such as himself was bound to have _some_ effect on him.)

Colin spoke up and broke the collective silence. “He had a failsafe.”

Lestrade, Sherlock and John all turned to Colin, who turned the Inspector. “Inspector Lestrade, can you help me lift the car?” Lestrade raised a questioning eyebrow, unmoving and rather nonplussed.

“Humour me.” Colin pleaded with a smile.

Lestrade beckoned for an officer. Together with him, the three heaved the car onto its side (with Colin doing a surprising amount of the work, for one with such a… delicate appearance). There, strapped to the underside of the car, was a slab of C4 attached to a tangle of wires and LED lights.

“There’s your failsafe. A bomb.”

The effect was immediate. The word _bomb_ rippled through the crime scene and brought everything to a screeching halt. Idling officers and detectives alike froze.

Lestrade recovered first, showing that perhaps not all of his police training had gone to waste. Turning to the frozen officers, he started yelling and waving his hands frantically. “Clear the scene! Get out of here!”

Pandemonium ensued. In a surge of movement and noise, people from all over the crime scene grabbed their belongings. Anderson and Donovan, who had been watching the scene unfold before them, scrambled over each over in their hurry to escape. Yelling to the few still frozen in shock to run, they started to sprint as far away from the car.

“Wait, Inspector!” Colin rushed, grabbing Lestrade’s shoulder. “Look at the lights, they’re all off. It’s deactivated.”

Lestrade hesitated his ordering, his arm still outstretched. People kept leaving the scene, but with less urgency than before. The word ‘deactivated’ was whispered between huddles of officers at the edge of the crime scene. Some cast hesitant glances back towards the car. He turned to John who had instinctively blocked Sherlock from the blast. “Can you confirm John?”

John’s back straightened and his eyes hardened. Striding over on a panthers soft feet, he eyed the bomb, getting as close as he dared. After staring at the wiring for roughly thirty seconds, he rose once more. “No immediate danger. It’s deactivated, but I’d still recommend calling a bomb squad to remove it. No telling if it’d reactivate when the lab techs move the car.”

Lestrade nodded sharply and called over an officer, muttering a quick order. It was like the world, or at least their small section of it, let out a collective sigh of relief. Officers slowly began filtering back into the scene and collecting the belongings they had abandoned in the scramble to escape possible incineration. That left John, Sherlock and Colin milling near the edge of the car.

“So the bomb was a failsafe?” John asked, standing with his back facing the bomb.

Colin nodded. “Small enough to take out the car, but big enough to take care of Mr. O’Shaughnessy should the strychnine fail to deliver. That means the killer had this all planned. They knew he was going to stop at a petrol station, and accounting for traffic and speed limits, that he’d be far out of city limits when the poison kicked in. They knew that he would have an opportunity to spike his drink when he left it on the roof of the car,” he gestured at the brown ring on the car’s roof, “and they knew he’d be in the car when he died. If the strychnine failed to kill him then the bomb would have detonated.”

Colin crouched over the victim, his voice going soft. “Strychnine leaves the victim conscious and in immense pain until death. The killer made this man suffer, but realising he was a dead man, he sent one last text to his wife, warning her that M is coming.” 

There was a deafening silence (or at least relative silence. There had been a bomb scare, after all). Colin froze, feeling Lestrade, John’s and Sherlocks eyes on him and slowly rose to his feet. Clearing his throat, he tried for a winning smile. He managed to look constipated instead. “So I’ll just, just... uh,” he stuttered, gesturing over his shoulder to the road and struggling with the strap of his bag. “Molly, um, she, she’ll probably need me at the, the lab to do… stuff.” He wheeled around and did an awkward half walk, half run away from the crime scene.

John watched the man dip under the yellow tape and disappear around the hedge moments later. The entire encounter seemed waking dream. Or nightmare, he couldn’t decide which. Looking to his partner in crime (ha), it seemed Sherlock had come to the same conclusion. His face was stony, shock visible in his disbelieving eyes.

Sergeant Donovan’s grating voice interrupted John’s thoughts and the silence that followed the boy’s escape. “Great, just what we need. Another freak.” With that she turned around and stalked off with Anderson in tow.

Lestrade turned to Sherlock who still seemed deep in thought, his eyes fixed on the point where Colin had just disappeared. “Well?” he inquired.

“Well what Lestrade?” Sherlock asked absentmindedly.

“Was this guy telling the truth? Or was he just making it up?”

Sherlock’s face remained an emotionless mask. Silence stretched. His eyes flickered for a moment, before he quietly answered, “Yes. He was correct. He was one hundred percent correct.” Without another word, Sherlock turned around and started to walk towards the exit of the field.

After thanking Lestrade, John quickly followed the retreating figure, jogging to catch up.

“Hang on! Sherlock!” He called. No reply came as Sherlock disappeared into their waiting cab. John grumbled some choice insults under his breath as he legged it after him, sliding into the cab just as it rolled onto the road. Sherlock had decided that the window was the most interesting thing in the entire cab, not even acknowledging John’s knife-like glare. After catching his breath, he turned expectantly to his friend. “Care to explain what happened there?”

Sherlock’s eyes flicked from the window to John for a moment. “I suppose I should have expected it.” He sighed. “It was bound to happen eventually. Mycroft and I can’t be the only ones on this God forsaken island that have half a braincell.”

John snorted at the clearly rehearsed answer. “Do you mean to say that that guy just knew everything that you knew? Just like that?” he laughed humourlessly and ran a hand through his hair.

“No John,” Sherlock replied quietly, “He knew more.”

John’s laugh faltered. “What?”

“He observed more about the scene than I did. The self-inflicted wounds I got. I would have concluded the same poison, eventually. Hell, I even would have gotten the dogs if I hadn’t been distracted by his incessant coughing. But I couldn’t translate the message and I-” he hesitated. “-I never saw the bomb.”

John was stunned into silence. Sherlock’s eyes were still fixed on the window, refusing to face him. Taking pity on him, John decided to drop the topic.

“Are we going to follow up on this case and find out more information?” 

Sherlock didn't reply straight away. After a moment or two he said, “No, we're not. We don't know who this M person is, so we won't be of much help. We’ll get the results from the lab later, but then we'll drop it.”

After a moment or two he added, “Oh and John? Don’t bother writing this in your little blog. I didn’t do anything anyway.”

Silence encased the taxi when John heard a quiet, incredulous laugh escape from Sherlock. “He was just like me.” he breathed.

Turning to look out the window again, John watched the countryside’s greens and browns fade to cityscape as they made their way back to 221B Baker Street. For the second time in the short period he had spent here in London, John knew that his life had been irrevocably changed by a tall, black haired man with a scarf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmmm who could this mysterious man possibly be? - Cat
> 
> We’re really good at subtlety. I promise. - Hat


	3. The one where the twist is unexpected. And by unexpected, we mean COMPLETELY EXPECTED

To the surprise of absolutely no one, finding a taxi in the middle of rural English countryside was exceptionally hard by virtue of the fact they were bound to actual roads and not paths masquerading as such. Exhausted from nearly thirty minutes of scouring the wilderness, Colin collapsed into the sole cab of the nearby village.

“Where to?” came a muffled voice behind the glass.

“St. Bart’s, please.”

As the taxi pulled onto the road and turned towards the comforting grey spectre of London’s looming skyline, Colin closed his eyes and let his head fall back, groaning with frustration. He’d definitely gotten off on the wrong foot (quite literally in this case) with, well, practically everyone at the crime scene. He could still feel the hot sting of embarrassment from his unceremonious tumble.

Sighing in resignation, Colin scrubbed his face to rid himself of the memory. At least all had not been in vain. When he had fallen to the ground, while he had gotten a better view of a dead man’s iris’ then he ever intended to, he had also caught a glimpse of the bomb beneath the car. A fact he had neglected to mention to the inspector was that when he had initially seen it, the bomb was complete with twinkling LEDs and a perilously short countdown timer. Luckily for everyone present, two thousand odd years of studying magic, following technology, and coveting luck tended to come in handy every now and then. A quick disarming spell had rendered the bomb a useless hunk of metal and left a probably very confused hit man at the other end.

He would have to be more careful next time though. As he rose from the ground, he could feel Sherlock’s piercing blue eyes boring into the side of his head, suspicion writ in his gaze. He would have to watch that one. The detective seemed far sharper than any of his compatriots, even by modern standards, where an infinite pool of information was available at a tap of a finger and answers could be found on voice command. He couldn’t afford another slip up, not so close to the last one, not when-

Colin was ripped from his thoughts as the taxi driver turned on the radio. The last notes of a song warbled through the plexiglass patrician before a radio host’s voice interrupted it. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special guest joining us in our booth! An act that has been taking the U.K. by storm, the man himself is right here in our own studio, Merlin the magician! Nice to finally meet you Merlin…”

Colin couldn’t help the incredulous laugh that slipped out between his lips. It was the first time in eons he had heard the name that he had once worn, so very long ago. Colin smiled as thought back to his youth, back to when he had lived in a time of myth and magic, back when he was Merlin. His modern persona slipped off him in an instant and he was transported back to Camelot. They were much simpler times, he realised that now. Simple and yet oh so happy. He saw the people he had been close with walk by him, so close that he could reach out and touch them, Arthur, Gwen, the knights. His friends. He remembered the soft and supple jerkin he still missed in an era of cotton and linen, the cumbersome chainmail, the adventures they had and the laughter they had shared.

But with the good memories came the bad, and soon he was shaking, trying to forget. The laughter that echoed in his mind morphed to battle cries and screams of agony. The nostalgic garments of moments before were soaked through with blood of foe and friend alike. And the faces, _their_ faces, as each of them took their last breath in front of him. The rivers of tears he’d cried and the aching sobs that had racked his body couldn’t bring them back, in spite of every dark and darker spell he had thrown their way. Time didn’t dull the pain and nothing, _nothing_ could make him forget. Voices of ghost long since buried started ringing in his head. _You will make me proud._ His hands shook as he tried to grab seat in front of him to steady himself. _You give me no choice._ His breath was coming in short gasps, barely making it past his pinched lips. _You made me feel loved._ His vision blurred, tears tumbling onto his shirt and scarf. _Thank you, Merlin._ “Stop the car.” He croaked, his voice a whisper. His voice wouldn’t work. Why wouldn’t his voice work? _Thank you_. “Stop the car!” Merlin sobbed out between snatched gulps of air.

The car screeched to a halt. Merlin threw the door open and escaped the cab on shaking legs, collapsing onto the ground. Shaking, his hands balled into fists, Merlin tried to block out the memories. It wasn’t working. _God, why wasn’t it working!_ He ran to his Colin persona and shrugged it on, clutching it close to him hoping it would shield him from the pain. “I am Colin McCnáimhín.” He recited, doing his best to ignore the shake in his voice. “I am thirty years old. I’m the sole survivor of my squadron from Iraq.” His breathing evened out and his voice became smoother. “I come from Ireland. I moved to England after the war. Both my mother and father are dead. I have no one.” Merlin squeezed his eyes shut. “I have no one.” He whispered.

He was vaguely aware of the taxi driver saying something. He concentrated on the voice as it swam back into focus. “-re you ok?”

Colin took a deep shaking breath and stood. Forcing a smile, he turned to the concerned looking middle age man. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’m fine. I think I’ll walk from here though.”

“Are you sure? I can call an ambulance or somethi-.”

“I’m -.” Colin cut him off before realising with a start that he didn’t actually know where he was and trailing off. Looking around, he found that not only had they re-entered the city, they had somehow stopped not a ten minute walk from St. Bart’s. He turned back to the increasingly confused cabbie.

“I’m fine,” he finished. “It’s only a couple of minutes’ walk from here. I need the air anyway.” Colin handed the driver a fifty-pound note, insisting he keep the change. With the bribe in his hand, the man hesitantly returned to his taxi and drove off, disappearing headfirst into the morning traffic. Colin turned his collar to the cold wind, secured his bag and started his walk back to the hospital, away from painful memories and towards his new life, in all its secure normality.

***

Ten minutes later, Colin pushed open the metallic swinging doors leading into the morgue. His head suitably cleared from the walk, he saw Molly who was at that very moment elbow deep in a man’s intestines.

“Hey Molly.” He chirped. “Feeling any better?” 

Molly tried to hide the flinch that snuck into her body language and failed miserably, as all who try to hide basic ingrained survival mechanisms do. She looked up at Colin with sunken, blood shot eyes and pulled a face. “Could you not talk so loud?” she winced.

Colin laughed and dropped his bag on the table that served as their official ‘blood and guts free’ zone. “That bad?” He asked while lowering his voice, his eyes crinkling with sympathy. She nodded with a tired smile and wiped a speck of blood from her cheek off on the shoulder of her lab coat.

A smile started to form on Colin’s lips. Over the past half year as Molly’s step-in assistant, they had learned to respect one another. They had maybe even started to become friends. Friends. The smile faded from his face. No. Colin shook his head to clear the dangerous notion from his mind. Friends of his always seemed to have bad things happen to them, as if the ghosts of his past where reaching through the vail of the universe to get back at him for abandoning them. He couldn’t allow that to happen to anyone, especially not Molly. She had been the only one who had been kind to him when he had arrived. She hadn’t pushed him about the past he clearly didn’t want to talk about and had lifted his spirits in ways he would never be able to thank her for. He would never forgive himself if something happened to her. He turned his back on his _colleague,_ his _acquaintance_ at best, and dumped his jacket and bag on their table. Trying to hide the emotion in his voice, he spoke. “Let’s autopsy this body.”

***

They worked in silence, not that talking was required. Colin had learned to anticipate Molly’s thoughts and actions before they happened and often startled her by handing her tools before she asked. Molly actually quite liked the silence, mostly. It allowed her to clear her mind and work with someone in peace. She had come to cherish their work as one of the few happy hours in her daily life. But not today. Today her peace was undone by the bad mood that simmered around Colin and leaked into their usually calm atmosphere. Molly could just tell that he was thinking about his murky, traumatising past, about whatever he was running from. She never pushed him to tell his story, not after her first few attempt had fallen flat on their face. Any question his previous work earned her a non-comital shrug and any about friends or family got stony silence. It was in the small things too. He never had any New Year’s resolutions, holidays came and went without any mention from him, but he would always become a stumbling shack of melancholy around Halloween. Desperate to distract him from whatever he was thinking about, Molly blurted out, “I wonder how this one died.”

Colin shook his head lightly and looked blankly at her. “Sorry, what?”

“Well, it’s not like he just collapsed. He was in excellent health. Healthy people don’t just… die. And then there’s this stuff under his nails, and the weird position he’s in...” She held up the cadaver’s hand, allowing Colin to scoop the white powder from underneath the short and stubby nails and slide it into a waiting jar. 

“Ahhh you suspect murder. Quiet a detective you are Molly.” Colin teased, a small smirk playing on his lips. Molly relaxed. That was her Colin back.

“He was murdered yesterday evening. The police found him this morning. They were quite puzzled by it really.” Colin’s eyes lit up as something occurred to him. He grabbed a scalpel and cut into the stomach.

“Oh, so this the case that Sherlock was asking me about.” Molly said to herself as she held the small intestine back for Colin, like any good friend would. After a few seconds of intense digging, Colin seemed to find something in the stomach and slipped it into another waiting jar, his eyes twinkling with excitement. Molly threw him an inquisitive look. “Important evidence!” he announced gleefully, shaking the jar emphatically. She rolled her eyes at his antics, wondering if his maturity had ever surpassed the age of six or if that was an insult to six-year olds. After he had secured the lids on both jars, a question occurred to Molly.

“So…” she began, fiddling with the intestines nervously. “What did you think of Sherlock?”

“Oh. Well, he’s quiet. His dress sense has something to be desired for, but I do like his scarf… hey!” he exclaimed as Molly wacked him on the arm.

“That’s not what I mean. I mean his deductions.”

“Hmm?”

“You know. His…” she waved her arms in the air, “thing.” When Colin’s blank expression persisted, she tried again. “He pokes around for a bit and then starts to rant off everything about the victim like he knows them? It’s like magic.” She sighed adoringly. 

Colin blinked dumbly for a second before realising he’d expose himself if he said nothing. “What… oh! Ohhh, yeah, that thing!” he laughed nervously “It’s uhhh- …cool.”

Molly paused her fangirling. “Cool? You witnessed a Sherlock deduction in all its glory and all you can say is ‘cool’?”

“Hey, what more do you want from me?” Colin laughed.

“Well maybe a bit more admiration for starters.” She grumbled as she pulled off her latex gloves.

“Speaking of admirers,” Colin jumped in trying to redirect the conversation, “who’s this new Jim guy?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“Would love to tell you, but you need to take these up to the lab and have a look at them.” She dumped the canisters he had filled earlier into his open hand and began shooing him out the door. When he began protesting, she sarcastically added, “Might be important evidence,” and slammed the door in his face.

***

After trudging up the many, many flights of stairs, Colin entered the lab deep in thought. This murder didn’t sit well with him. Technically, he was done now. He’d autopsied the body, and had or was analysing the evidence that was available. By all rights, he was off the hook. So why did he have this ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach?

Colin carefully opened the lid of the canisters in his hand and scraped a small sample from the bottom with a metal forceps. Carefully placing the sample on a slide and securing the cover slide over it, he slipped it under the microscope’s and peered into it. A beautiful translucent crystalline structure graced his field of vision. It was definitely strychnine. Colin’s eyes took in the deadly poison as he changed the magnification. No malformities. Strychnine in its pure form from the looks of it. His mind wandered as he took out the first sample and prepared the second.

Maybe it was the nature of this killer that bugged him. He seemed less like a crime-of-passion, spur-of-the-moment kind of butchering, and more like a cold, analytical type of crime puppet master, like a spider sitting patiently in the middle of a web of his own design, waiting for a fly to stumble into his trap. Pure strychnine was hard to come by, originating from south-east Asia, so their web must be a far reaching one at that. Add that to the fact that this person was willing to murder someone they had had previous relations with in cold blood and that they appeared to have a hitman on speed-dial, and you had yourself a recipe for a very dangerous killer.

Colin placed the second sample under the microscope and was just entertaining the possibility of the hitman still being in the world of the living when he heard two familiar footsteps coming down the hall. One long and agitated, and one with a military like march. He smiled to himself as a voice cursing a burnt finger and tongue drifted into the lab from the hall. Head still in the microscope, he greeted the pair as they entered the room.

“Checking up on me are you Mr. Holmes?” Colin adjusted the magnification. “Oh, and you can find better tea at the café down the street Mr. Watson. Personally, I find the machines to be absolutely ghastly.”

“What… how did you…?” Watson stuttered.

“Burn on your finger. You were complaining about it on the way in.” he explained. “The machine down the hall always fills it up to the brim, so when you picked it up, it burnt your finger. After you unsuccessfully tried to drink it, you burnt your tongue and dumped it immediately after.” Colin looked up from the microscope and smiled at John’s hilarious expression. He turned to address Sherlock. “What can I do for you? You’re not here for the strychnine, both of us know how our victim landed on Molly’s chopping board.”

“It’s not _our_ victim,” Sherlock snapped before composing himself, “and of course I know it was strychnine. I’m not a complete buffoon.” Sherlock levelled him with a gaze as cool and hard as ice cold steel. “No, I’m here to find out how you did it.”

Colin turned to lean against the table behind him and squinted at Sherlock. “…you’re going to have to be a bit more specific. I tend to do a lot of things.”

“Fabulous. Now there’s two sarcastic thesauruses.” John muttered under his breath. Colin couldn’t help the genuine laugh that bubbled in his throat. “I can see why you like him.” He chuckled once he had finished, smiling at John.

Sherlock ignored him. “How.” He repeated.

“You mean the ‘magic’ as Molly calls it?” Colin shrugged. “I didn’t always have it. I wasn’t born intrinsically smart like I suspect you were, Sherlock. As a kid I just started… noticing things, I guess. I noticed more things than what one would call ‘normal’, but I never lingered over it. When I was older, I was forced to use every advantage I could to get out of a bind and I just took it to another level afterwards.” Colin smiled ruefully. “I haven’t been able to turn it off since then. Ah well. I suppose not everyone can be normal.”

“Oh, stop whining about how terrible your life is and how awful your abilities are. You have too much potential to waste it on whingeing,” John interrupted. “Besides, a curse is just what you make it,” he added softly.

Colin’s eyes melted from rueful anger to gentle empathy. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” He asked quietly. John’s head snapped up in shock, his mouth open with a question before Colin backtracked.

“You know what, it doesn’t actually matter. What matters is that your friend here seems followed your advice and has made quite a name for himself.” Colin made a picture frame with his figures around Sherlock. “Sherlock Holmes: The detective that sees everything.”

“Not _every_ thing apparently.” Sherlock’s retort was laced with bitterness. “How did you see the bomb?” he demanded.

Colin faltered and lowered his hands. “The bomb?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

“The bomb! I got everything except the bomb! Well, that and the text, but there’s google translate for that. But the bomb!” He pulled at his curls and collapsed into a chair beside the counter, tilting his head to the ceiling in anguish. 

Colin barked out a laugh. “That’s what’s worrying you?” he asked incredulously. “I only saw the bomb when I took that ah- unexpected tumble.”

“When you _fell_?” John exclaimed.

“Like a court jester.” Colin grinned. “I have been reliably told that I could change professions. I have many talents.” He winked at John, who tried to cover his snort with a cough.

Sherlock was clearly unamused. “Yes, well if you’re quite done with your nonsense, we have things to do. Come on John.” Sherlock snapped as he stood up quickly and flounced down the corridor, his coat billowing behind him.

“Sorry about that.” John sighed, looking after the steadily retreating figure that was his friend. “He isn’t usually like this.”

“Don’t bother trying to lie to protect him, Mr. Watson, I have heard all about Sherlock Holmes.” Colin hummed.

John looked at him in surprise. “You have?”

“Well not _everything_ , but enough to know that he’s usually rude and obnoxious,” he paused, “except to you, on occasion.”

“John!” Sherlock yelled from down the hall.

“And right now is not one of those occasions.” John muttered.

Colin grinned and extending his hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you Dr. Watson.” Colin said as he shook the military doctor’s.

“John, please. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.”

“John! Now!” Sherlock disappeared around the corner. John rolled his eyes, smiled at Colin and jogged down the hall to the follow the impatient detective.

***

Sherlock stared out of the window of the cab and watched the grey buildings leech into greyer terraced houses. It was raining. Well of course it was raining, it was England after all, but the weather was doing nothing to improve on Sherlock’s already lousy mood. He was impatient to get away from Colin, who, even though they had only met twice, was annoying Sherlock greatly. In Sherlock’s ‘humble’ opinion, the further away from that person he got the better. He was itching to be in the safety of the four walls of the apartment, where he could be away from all these _people_. God, he couldn’t stand people.

“Care to explain why you decided to be so rude?” John’s pointed tone interjected Sherlock’s thoughts.

Sherlock squeezed his eyes closed and exhaled in annoyance. “Politeness is a made-up human concept and thus completely inconsequential.” He had been asked this question a lot in the past. This answer usually shut most people up.

“Ahhhh,” John tipped his head knowingly, “so you’re going for the traditional ‘using my _massive vocabulary_ to cover up my own insecurities’ card. Hard to beat the classics.”

Sherlock snorted. He’d forgotten the fact that John had graduated university with a bachelors in sarcastic retorts and diploma in witty remarks. “I’m not insecure. I’m merely pointing out that being polite is utterly ridiculous, and anyone with any intelligence foregoes it.” He rebutted.

A beat of glorious silence passed. Sherlock relaxed into his seat once more before John’s quite voice skewered his eardrums and his patience. “And yet, Colin is very polite.”

Sherlock’s dislike of the man went up yet another notch. “Which tells you just how ‘intelligent’ he really is.” He gritted out between clenched teeth.

“Oh come off it, Sherlock. He’s just as smart as you.” John retaliated exasperated by Sherlock’s dismissal. “I think you’re just jealous.” He huffed.

“Jealous?!” Sherlock barked out a humourless laugh “Okay, now I really think I’ve overestimated your brain functionality.” He threw open the cab door leaving John to pay for the cab and stomped up to the familiar black door with the gold letters. Almost safe. He made it inside and up the first flight of stairs before John entered the stairwell and continued the argument.

“Sherlock, you are being ridiculous. Just admit it. Everyone gets jealous!” He called up.

“I’m not!” Sherlock yelled down. He was the apartment door now. He reached into his pocket and fumbled with the keys. Was it too much to ask for peace for just a few minutes? Unfortunately, the universe remained unresponsive to his pleas. John was right behind him in seconds.

“Yes you are. Say it. Jealous.”

“No!” The keys _finally_ fitted into the lock and Sherlock swung the door open and marched into the apartment with John in tow. John grabbed his shoulder and forcefully spun Sherlock to face him.

“Say it!”

“Ha!” Sherlock tried to free himself, but John’s grip remained strong.

“Say it!”

“No!”

“Oh, I do hope I’m not interrupting something.” A familiar voice floated over towards to the two. Sherlock closed his eyes and cursed his stupidity. Of course he was here. He could sense irritation and always, always had to rush over and magnify it.

A lazy smile spread over their visitor’s face. “Hello brother mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pain, intestines and Mycroft. What a beautiful combination. 
> 
> Unrelated, I actually do have a reasoning for Colin/ Merlin's name in this fic if you're interested- Colin Éanna McCnáimhín  
> Colin- Arthur always called Merlin a girl (real creative with those insults Arthur), which in Irish is cailín (phonetically call-een) which turned into Colin when he hopped the sea over to England. Also Merlin's actor is called Colin Morgan, which is a happy coincidence.  
> Éanna- a spin on the Irish word for bird (éin). Merlin in Arthurian legend is attributed with a bunch of different powers including turning into a bird (why he doesn't just fly away from his problems I'll never know). Also there’s a falcon called the Merlin falcon which is super cool  
> McCnáimhín- literally son of bone, which has all the ironic connotations of a man unable to die and invokes the lovely image of Merlin surrounded by the bones of his friends- oh look I made myself cry. (Funnily enough I was double checking the spelling of this and it turns out that cnáimhín also means wishbone! A totally intentional double meaning that I will be taking full credit for thank you very much)
> 
> Also you may notice that there is a lot of Irish influence in this. That's because Arthurian legend derived a lot of their influences from Celtic mythology, the majority of which came form Scotland, Wales and, you guessed it, Ireland baby! Seriously, some of the Irish mythos is both hilarious and amazing. A man literally escapes a massacre by turning into a salmon and swimming away from his problems. Truly an inspiration to us all. - Cat
> 
> Cat is a mythology nerd and forgot to mention we’re both from Ireland. - Hat


	4. The one where Colin makes some new friends! (wait, that's not how you spell stalkers)

Mycroft lounged back in the armchair and watched the pair. He’d let himself into the apartment and had been sitting there for fifteen minutes. Either his sources had been miserably misinformed about his brother’s timetable, or his brother and his new friend had been doing something unknown for five minutes prior to coming here. Considering that his sources had been cajoled, caressed, and terrified into the highest standards of compliance and that right now they both looked like two guilty children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, Mycroft had his money on the latter.

Sherlock shrugged off John’s hand and put on a pained smile. “Mycroft. Thanks for letting us know you were coming. Tea?” He said sarcastically as he walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge.

Mycroft ignored the snark that he’d been subjected to for too many years of his life. He decided that concentrating on Mr. John Watson might prove more fruitful. Putting on his best ‘tell me all your knowledge or I will disembowel you with my second favourite umbrella’ look, Mycroft turned to John. “What were you two talking about?” He asked in a voice of silk over steepled fingers. Doubtlessly, any companion of his brothers would be unused to tact or decorum, but that hardly meant he had to abandon the tactics he loved best at such an early juncture.

“Hmm no milk. John, would you be so kind to get some?” Sherlock called from the kitchen.

“Sherlock feels threatened by another genius at work and he won’t admit it.” John blurted out.

“John.” Sherlock warned. 

“Oh, a genius?” Mycroft leaned back, condescension just dripping from his voice and a pyric smile playing on his lips. “Well I do love a good piece of fantasy.”

“This isn’t some story I made up,” John insisted. “He just helped us on a case today and-“

“John. Milk. Now.” Sherlock snapped.

John ground his teeth in exasperation and half turned towards the voice. “Sherlock I got milk yesterd-”

“Now!”

John got the subtle message on the third try, muttering a quick, “going to get milk, I guess,” on his way to the door. Once it slammed shut, Sherlock slunk back into the living room and carefully sat down on the armchair across from Mycroft. An eternity of palpable tension followed, only broken by the gentle ticking of the clock. Eventually Mycroft splintered the tense silence. “How have you been?” he asked quietly.

“God’s sake Mycroft!” Sherlock growled. “I didn’t get rid of John just so you could ask me how I’m _feeling_.” Sherlock pushed himself to his feet in frustration and stalked to the window.

“No, but it certainly would ease my mind to know.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and took a deep breath before answering. “I’m fine. My unused intellect is slowly driving me insane and I’m as emotionally unavailable as ever- but no relapses.”

Mycroft tutted. “Well, your emotions we can fix, and your survival instincts will stop your brain from committing metaphorical suicide, but once your body is broken… there’s no going back.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes contrite drivel, blah blah, now can we get to the real reason you’re here?”

“Can’t a concerned brother visit his younger sibling?” Mycroft asked sweetly. Sherlock turned around and gave him a face that would put medusa to shame.

Mycroft waved off the glare and got up to join Sherlock at the window. His eyes settled into the middle distance. “My sources reliably tell me there may be a very powerful man surfacing in London.” He paused, letting the information settle in. “And rumours report that he has connections in Scotland yard.” 

Sherlock’s eyes widened and he inhaled sharply.

“Could it be the man you met today, or is John over stating this person’s intelligence?”

Sherlock closed his eyes, trying to erase the image of _that man's_ face that was scarred into his retinas. “No. No, John wasn’t being hyperbolic. This man- he’s just like us. He- he even saw something I didn’t. A bomb. If it hadn’t been deactivated, the consequences would have been disastrous.” He felt his brother’s eyes bore into the side of his head.

Silence. “Is he a possible threat?”

“Anyone with our intelligence is a possible threat.” Sherlock answered tersely. He swallowed, forcing himself to believe that London’s safety was his only motivation. The former drug addict was a master of self-delusion, but it felt stale.

“I’ll invite him in for a friendly chat then.” Mycroft’s classic crocodile smile was absent from his face, all pretence of cordiality dropped. Whoever this Colin was, he was most certainly not in for a friendly chat. Pangs of the guilt that Sherlock had tampered down earlier threatened to spring up unbidden. He had to be alone, had to get rid of all this noise, had to breathe.

“Fine.” Sherlock snapped, opening his eyes. “Now get out of my apartment.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

“Out! I need to think.” Mycroft conceded and picked up his umbrella from the couch and strode out the door without saying a word. Finally alone, Sherlock took a deep breath. Safe. All the tension he’d built up since Colin had out deduced him earlier that day melted away as he slowly exhaled. Exhausted, he walked over to the armchair Mycroft had sat in moments earlier and collapsed into it. He curled up and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. For a few moments, he was a boy again, sitting in Mycroft’s lap next to the fireplace in his house as they read ‘War and Peace’ together. But that moment passed when his brain, the curse that it was, started to work again, reminding him that the fibres of the armchair were too short, the temperature of the room too cold and the pitch of the wind blowing against the window too high to be on the ground floor. His golden warm memory dissipated back into the recesses of his mind, blown away by the harsh winds of reality returning it to a muted wasteland. And in the silence of his own mind, Sherlock realised that even though he had wanted to be on his own all day, he really didn’t like being lonely.

***

Colin finished at the lab a few hours later. Through some intense digging and crosschecking with other samples of known strychnine sources, he was able to narrow down the poison’s origins from the entirety of south-east Asia to India, which, alas, was still an impossibly large area to cover. Short of him going to India himself and hunting down the poison’s source, there was nothing else he could do to follow up the lead. The case was going to go cold and Darren O’Shaughnessy’s murderer would go unpunished. With a cloud of pessimism and dark thoughts floating around his head, he locked up the lab and left the report on the pile of documents set to go to Inspector Lestrade’s desk the next morning. Trudging back down the many, many flights of stairs (why on earth the Department hadn’t invested in an elevator was beyond Colin- well no, it wasn’t, he was fairly sure the explanation started with ‘under’ and ended with ‘funding’), he pushed open the door and walked out onto the street.

He was stopped in his tracks by the unmistakable feeling of a pair of eyes locking onto his movements, a feeling he had unfortunately become very accustomed to over his many moons of running and hiding. He let the doors swing closed behind him and tried to cool his nerves. Pretending to fix his scarf in the door’s window, Colin took in his surroundings, and more specifically, the people. 

The street was a busy one, filled with cafés and the shoals of people pushing past each other on the bustling paths. Using the reflection in the glass, he eyed the café directly across from St. Bart’s. It was a cosy looking establishment, with warm earthen tones and fake vines decorating the outer walls and interior. Ever popular with those who required a break from the highly modernised London lifestyle, regular customers of all ages filtered in and out of the door, filling up the seats indoors to avoid the brisk autumn breeze. That is, except for one woman, who braved the frigid breeze at her outside table all by her lonesome.

Colin eyed her in the window. She was the image of a fashionable businesswoman, a formfitting, with her expensive looking blouse tucked into a hot pink pencil skirt and matching high heels, she would have blended right into any board meeting or Starbuck’s chain- which is precisely why she stuck out like a sore thumb sitting in front of the homiest café in all of London. Colin wasn’t the only one who noticed her- in the couple of seconds he had watched her she had received quite a few double takes on the street, and at that very second, a wolf whistle. She shifted in her seat as the man walked by her, crossing her long legs a little tighter and dropping her head, her silken dark hair draping over the frame of her sunglasses and cascading down her cheek.

Had it been any other morning, Colin himself would have just written off her tense behaviour as a natural reaction to the lewd remarks thrown her way, but the nagging burn of watching eyes refused to budge even as he finished his scarf tying and turned to properly analyse the situation. He watched her drag a single, perfectly manicured finger along the rim of the paper cup that sat on the table. No steam rose from its lid, no warmth appeared to seep into her hands or make her flinch as her finger slipped off the rim and into the cup itself. Even as she pulled her finger out of the cup and wiped it delicately off the tablecloth, her phone remained perfectly balanced in her lap and remained facing the doors of St. Bart’s. It all lined up too perfectly with the surveillance he himself had dodged over the millennia. The brightly coloured pencil skirt and skin-tight shirt were old tricks used by con-men, meant to draw the eyes away from the face or hands as a distraction so the target wouldn’t be alerted to the fact that their wallet and credit cards had mysteriously vanished. The sunglasses and loose hair kept the person from being recognised, a technique used to tail people more efficiently. It was very nearly the perfect example of a tail well done, however, the one glaring flaw in Colin’s theory were her heels. They were far too high to properly run in, which was not ideal for grand chases through central London. That left him with three possibilities; One, Colin was being paranoid. Years of being on the run had made him twitchy, which had kept him alive, but may be leading him to jump the shark here. Two, Colin was being watched. He had slipped up somewhere, someone had seen what he could do, someone powerful, and they had found him. He tried not to let his throat tighten at the implications- another cage, another shadow to escape from under. Which lead him to option three, by far the most unsettling of them all; someone was going to abduct him. The woman couldn’t hope to do that all on her own, no, not at all, but if she had help, then maybe, just maybe-

Colin began scanning the crowds more thoroughly, raking his eyes over every single slightly out of place individual. After several minutes of searching to no avail, he was about let his shoulders relax and assume his first theory was correct when he spotted a black jeep pull up at the traffic lights at the corner of St. Bart’s. The jeep itself didn’t worry Colin in the slightest, however just as it pulled to a stop, Colin glanced into the window’s reflection and felt a spike of panic shoot through him. It was as if time slowed to a halt and everything was moving through a thick treacle. The sharp sounds of the city muted to a dull roar and all passers-by fading into obsoletion. Waiting around the corner, just out of sight, were three enormous men. Their long dark trench coats and business-like ties did nothing to hide the bulging muscles barely contained by tight fit shirts and trousers. They kept checking their blackberries in a lousy attempt to mask the fact that they were very obviously idling in wait for something. For him, Colin realised with a start.

The traffic flicked from red to green and he snapped out of his haze. Colin breathed in deeply attempting to calm his nerves and quell the instinctive panic that clogged his throat. A flurry of thoughts and mindless pandemonium rushed his head as he forced logic and oxygen through to his brain. Fighting those guys was not an option. Although he could take them out without a single blow touching him, there were far too many eyes watching, not to mention the many, many security cameras that littered all of London and the majority of modern England. But if he could out manoeuvre them, beat them at their own game, then he might just have a chance. After the fight or fight instinct had started to subside, Colin stuffed his hands in his pockets and started to stroll down the path in the opposite direction to his apartment as calmly as he could. 

Flicking his eyes back to pencil skirt girl, Colin watched as she dropped her coffee. Simultaneously his three very innocent looking new friends rounded the corner with all the nonchalance of an advancing army and started to follow Colin. He turned the corner and forced a steady pace, analysing what path would be safest to take to his apartment. His options were winding side alleys, or open streets. Large crowds and open streets were the easiest to disappear in, especially during the evening pedestrian rush hour, Collin decided. Besides, if he opted for the former he was bound to get caught in small narrow side streets with nowhere to flee.

His panic under iron control, he crossed a road and turned into a busy, commercial street. Perfect. Colin had just started to hope for freedom when he passed a phone booth and something unexpected happened: it rang. Ignoring the creeping fingers of fear that crawled up his spine, Colin kept his eyes ahead and walked past the ringing phone. He passed yet another phone box, which also started to ring. Colin quickened his pace to a steady walk as turned the corner, catching a glimpse of two more minions joining the “Lets follow Colin” parade. His heartbeat sped up. He passed another phone box. It rang. _Fantastic._

Fear controlled Colin’s legs. He started to run, not looking back. He heard his tails splitting up, three on his back, two to the left and right. He made it five blocks before a black van swerved across onto the path, trying to cut him off. Slowing down wasn’t an option, Colin could almost feel the breath of his pursuers on his neck and down his back. He barrelled forwards, slid across the hood of the van and blindly turned left. Bright, searing green assaulted Colin’s eyes. The park. A possible escape. Or a death trap.

The wet gravel crunched beneath Colin’s pounding feet as he raced up the path. He glanced over his shoulder at the steadily nearing figures. Scrambling for footing on the loose surface, he careened to a halt at the pinwheel centre of the park. Colin cursed internally as he took in his surroundings. Each of the 5 paths that branched out from where he stood and lead to a different exit from the park and disappeared into the vague green shrubbery of the distance. Colin spun desperately on the spot as he tried to pick a path. Disoriented and desperate to escape the nearing thunder of approaching feet, Colin picked a path at random and sprinted for freedom.

His meagre hope of escape was dwindling to nothingness until he noticed a group of dog walkers chatting up ahead. A desperate idea sprung to mind. He slowed to a walk and sidled into the large group, pretending to look for his dog. He could hear one of his stalkers approach the group.

Ducking down, Colin scooped up a mud coloured leash that hadn’t been there a second before and stuffed his coat and scarf into his satchel. He then walked into the trees that lined the path and pretended to look and call for his dog. “Gandalf!” he whistled. It came out more like a pathetic wheeze. _Oh well_ , Colin thought, _I’m more of a cat person anyway_. Minion number one had stopped running and was now scanning the empty path. He tried again, this time sounding like a tea kettle. “Gandalf! Where are you boy?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the trench coats curse as they realised they’d lost him. They continued to hurry down the path, leaving a very relieved Colin to pick his way out of the underbrush. Turning the way he had just come, he raced back down the path to the pinwheel centre and legged it for the exit that had a steady stream of traffic, exiting the park into a busy suburban street.

Even though his heart was still racing, he screeched to a halt and forced himself to walk slowly. Running would only draw the attention of the remaining people following him. Pulling up a mental map of the area, he realised he was now a good five minutes from his apartment. The security of his house was in reach.

Just as he thought he had lost them and was in for smooth sailing back home, he heard the unmistakable thud of feet pounding against the path racing up behind him. Colin broke into a run, desperate to lose them. Glancing behind him, he realised the man was fast approaching and pushed himself into a burst of speed to widen the narrowing gap. He snapped his head forward just in time to see another trench coat lackie coming straight at him. He was outmanoeuvred and trapped.

 _Side alley!_ His instincts screamed. Seeing no other option, he hurled into the dark back alley that came up on his left, plunging into the shade. He immediately regretted it. It was a practical dead end, a twenty-metre-tall wall closing off the two red brick apartment buildings that flanked his left and right. Corrugated iron balconies lined the left wall, starting from the second story and climbing up and over the wall itself.

Colin glanced back at the alley’s opening. The agents were still out of sight. Knowing he had moments, Colin plotted a course from balcony to balcony in his head. Double checking for cameras and finding none, he muttered a quick levitation spell to get him to the first balcony high up above him. Leaping and swinging from railing to railing, he launched himself over the wall just as the agents rounded the corner down below. Colin slowed his descent with another spell and landed in a tumble to avoid breaking any bones. There were utterances of disbelief coming from the other side of the wall as he rose to his feet. Brushing himself off and smiling at the inventive curses the agents threw at each other, he strolled out of the alley and made his way back home.

***

Mycroft Holmes sat himself down in his plush black leather armchair back at his headquarters with a slice of cake sitting perfectly on the blue china in his hand. He sank his desert fork into the slice. It was the perfect sponge cake, moist and fluffy. Lifting it to his mouth, he was about to savour the flavours of humanity’s one improvement on the world before he was interrupted by a shrill ringtone. His assistant Anthea held out his phone for him to answer.

“Is it done?” he snapped, spilling crumbs everywhere. Such a waste of cake he tutted internally.

A nervous voice crackled across the speaker. “No sir. Unfortunately, he caught onto us as soon as he left the building, didn’t even answer the phone boxes. He put up a chase and we were close behind him, but he somehow lost all of the agents we sent.”

A beat of silence followed. “How disappointing,” Mycroft hummed before he hung up and placed the phone to Anthea’s waiting hand.

“A man that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, who not only evaded capture, but outsmarted a group of highly trained agents handpicked from the top international security divisions.” He mused.

A beat of silence passed before he pushed himself to his feet and strode to the window across from him. “Anthea, clear my schedule for the rest of the day and pull up everything you can find on one Colin McCnáimhín.” 

She nodded and typed on her phone. “What do you intend on doing sir?” she asked tentatively.

Mycroft’s face split into a crocodile smile. “I’m going to have to make a house call.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God Bless Mycroft and Sherlock for being like small children fighting over a toy up until the exact second someone else asks for it, at which point they are united in keeping it to themselves. - Hat
> 
> Astonishingly this makes them sound even more like cats. I'm starting to sense a pattern here- Cat


	5. The one where Mycroft makes a House call (hide your children and elderly (no, not you Colin) )

Colin took the long walk back to his apartment, making good use of the many crowded streets London had to offer, still wary of his would-be kidnappers finding him again. He relaxed just a bit when his building came into sight. Pulling out his keys, he trudged up the porch and slid into the building, letting the main door swing shut behind him as he took a moment to breathe. That was a closer brush with danger than he’d had in many, many moons. Feeling a bit more settled, he shuffled down the hallway to home. Unfortunately for his plans of a relaxing evening, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up the second he got close. Something felt distinctly wrong.   
  
Colin took a few steps back and inspected the familiar door. It was definitely in need of a new coat of paint, but everything was as he had left it. The knocker was perfectly straight, held together by metallic-painted-plastic, hot glue, and hope. The plain black mat was slightly askew. A second before he would’ve discarded his reaction as (justified, dammit!) paranoia, he noticed thin paint scratches around the lock that hadn’t been there before. He leaned closer, inspecting the scratches up close. They were clean and shallow, not deep and jagged like you would expect from fumbled key stabs or even a forced lock. Colin frowned, a murky recollection surfacing in the recesses of his long-suffering memory. He would have to check his hunch, but if it was correct…

Casting a glance behind him, his eyes zeroed in on the sorry excuse of a security camera that sat in the corner of the hall. One of the few benefits of this particular apartment was its shoddy surveillance system. For any sane person this would have been an immediate red flag, but for Colin it meant freedom to use his magic without the fear that he would be locked up in a cell under Buckingham palace and experimented on for the rest of his days (of course, there were worse things that could arise from his discovery, but Colin pushed that thought aside with a gentle but practiced hand). The only ‘security’ this place boasted was a solitary camera that easily overheated and malfunctioned, at least as far as the landlord knew. The reality was that Colin could short circuit it with a flick of his wrist whenever he felt like some extra privacy. Like, for example, when he was coming home with an obscene amount of terrible pizza- or, err, right now.  
  


With one last cursory glance around to double check for prying eyes, he muttered a quick spell, eyes closed to hide the flare of gold in his irises. The camera gave a defeated _fzzt,_ the green light on its side blinking once before fading to black. Colin turned back to the door. He took a moment and a deep breath, rekindling the long dormant buzz in his veins. His stomach tugged towards the earth like a magnet calling home. Unfelt by the mundane people all around them, the magic of the earth swirled up and all around Colin – no, Merlin, for in this moment he was more the magician than he had been in almost a millennium, adrenaline and power pulsing through his body with each beat of his heart. His eyes up like fog lights and he let out a tiny hiss at the relaxation of muscles he had been holding for far too long. The initial rush had faded, somewhat, but Colin felt the ghost of what it had been like to feel the first grip of magic so very long before.

Interestingly enough, science and magic weren’t as separate as modern media so often portrayed them. The electromagnetic spectrum that was discovered in the 19th century was something that Colin was long familiar with from his own observations with the help of magic (although, admittedly, the words he used to describe the high frequency radiation were less _gamma rays_ and more _danger air wiggles_.) Using magic to detect phenomena that would otherwise require fancy modern instrumentation such as, say, voltage output, was something that had become increasingly useful as technology’s clutch on humanity grew tighter and tighter.

With his eyes glowing like the molten gold he could feel moving in the core oh so far below, he turned to the door and hummed. He flicked between different views and watched them flit past like individual frames on a reel of film, first checking lock’s chemical composition for tampering, then between the various fundamental forces- gravitational, inter-molecular- before finally landing on electromagnetic. The magnetic field of the lock had been tampered with, effectively flipping the polarity. Colin leaned down and ran his hand over the lock, the impression of the memory slowly being pulled to the surface by the new evidence brought to light as he mused to himself.  
  
There are a number of ways to open a locked door. The most common (and intended) method was to have a key. Less common and more _exciting_ ways include picking the lock, shooting the lock, and just breaking the door down. One fashion that Merlin had seen a long, long time ago was with the use of a strong magnet. Running a magnet over an iron lock pulls the tumbler pins permanently into place and leaves the lock open and unusable.

Extending his senses further into the apartment, he could feel the beat of a foreign heart in his chair, the wrong speed to be the stray cat that kept finding her way inside his home or any of the numerous pests such a fabulous apartment boasted. Well, that solidly confirmed his theory. Colin straightened and let the roar in his veins fade to a barely perceptible buzz, his eyes dimming back to their usual azure, perhaps only a shard brighter than usual. Fixing his jacket, he let himself into his apartment and prepared to meet his uninvited guest. 

Colin floated past the ridiculously suspicious dark patch in the corner of his living room and into the kitchen. Flicking on the kettle, he grabbed a bag of biscuits and a plate, humming as he went. He placed two mugs (his personal favourite, a classic Disney Merlin the magician one, and the slightly worse Dumbledore one for the unwelcome visitor) out on the counter in front of him and called out to the man sitting in the shadows behind him. "Milk or sugar?" 

There was a second of silence before a strained voice answered, "Sugar, please."

Colin poured the boiling water into the mugs and dropped spoons in, releasing tea into the water. He had to remind himself not to levitate the cups to the table as he added sugar to his guest's mug and milk to his own.

"How did you know I was here?" Came the voice from the shadows.

"Well, this is my apartment, I think I'd know when someone breaks in." Colin called over his shoulder before stirring the tea and gripping the handles of each mug. Walking over to the table that sat between two armchairs, one of which was draped in shadows where Mr. 'Locks don’t apply to me' was currently sitting, he placed the cups down.

"I presume you're the one who tried to have me kidnapped earlier today then?" The man pulled a sickly smile as Colin lowered himself into the seat across from him, his face cast in shadow. His teeth were a military cemetery, unnaturally straight and with an artificial whiteness to them. Colin was unimpressed.

"That would be correct.” His unwelcome guest leered rather than spoke, which put a death to Colins patience with the intruders little powerplay. He raised an eyebrow before simply turning on the corner lamp, effectively killing the mysterious air his guest had going on. He was toady looking man, tall and plump around the edges, with a sickly pale complexion and intelligent eyes. Although he wore a black fitted suit, well-tailored and expensive looking, he looked less like James Bond and more like a well-paid desk jockey. The man blinked a couple of times at the sudden change in brightness and smiled thinly.   
  
"Ok, well, first if all, your people really need to clean up their game, very sloppy tailing, terrible execution," Colin stirred his tea, raised the cup to his mouth and sipped its contents. "Secondly, and I realise I probably should have asked this first, why try to kidnap me?" 

  
The man looked slightly irritated, as if he was about to argue that his people were perfectly proficient at tailing people that didn’t spontaneously _phase though walls_ , thank you very much. The moment passed though as his political smile fell into place. "Oh, I just wanted to have a little chat with you."

Colin frowned. "Well, attempted kidnapping isn't usually the best way to set up a meet and greet."

The man hesitated. "No, I suppose not," he conceded, stirring his tea. "However, not all people are as civil when I pop in uninvited."

"Gee, I wonder why? It's almost like it's _an invasion of privacy_ and _illegal._ " Colin muttered into his tea. His tea, as always, made a good audience for sarcastic comments. "Pray tell what question was so important that you couldn't just make a phone call?"

"I've come to make you an offer." When he wasn't interrupted by more sarcasm, he continued. "I want you to... feed us information on Sherlock Holmes. For a price of course."

"No, you don't." 

The shadow man opened his mouth and closed it again, frowning like he wasn’t expecting Colin to go off script so early. What about Colin's earlier escape had given him that impression, exactly, would forever remain unknown. "Excuse me?"

"You don't want me to spy on him, too stupid of a move to make for someone who is clearly skilled at finding, tracking and getting information out of people. Also, you know that I know next to nothing about Sherlock, so no, you can't want me to spy on him. Why are you really here?" 

The man eyed Colin for a couple of seconds. "Right you are. I'm here to clear you." 

"Clear me to what?"

"Why, to live freely of course." The man pulled out a manila folder from his suit, opening the first page. “I may not be able to take you out myself, but my expertise lies in…” He leaned forwards, the little mirth in his eyes replaced with dangerous intelligence. “other places.” He began to read from the file. "Colin Éanna McCnáimhín, 30 years old, born in Ireland, Athenry Co. Galway, moved here in 2009, no siblings, mother and father deceased." 

Colin smiled. "Not bad. Please do continue." 

"Well, there is the matter of your time in Iraq. But I was hoping you could tell me more about that yourself. From what I can tell you were extremely... accomplished."

Colin’s face hardened. "Both of us know those files have been placed under the highest clearance. I doubt even _you,_ Mr. Holmes could access them.”  
  
The man paused. “You know who I am.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement laced with lead- heavy and deadly.

“I do.” Colin set down his cup. “Not tricky to figure out really, you actually bear a remarkable resemblance to your brother and your mannerisms echo each other's. Sherlock seems to have copied your mannerisms as a child in the idolisation of an older sibling as opposed to intentionally picking up on them, though.” Colin mused. “His high intellect is often a target so I’m assuming you set up these little meetings to clear people that get close to him, although in my case, I suspect that you also wanted to check how real my intelligence is and assess if I will be a problem in the future." Colin paused. "Have I missed anything?"  
  
Mr. Holmes regarded Colin for a moment. "You're doing just fine, Mr. McCnáimhín."

Colin leaned forward. "I really mean no harm to your brother Mr. Holmes. I just want to start my life again, and London seems like a good place to do that." 

The other Holmes' face stayed flat. "Forgive me if I don't take your word for it," he hesitated, "but everything does seem to be in order here. I'll be keeping an eye on you Mr. McCnáimhín."

"I wouldn't expect anything less." Colin intoned as he rose to his feet and walked to the fridge. Throwing the door open, he rummaged around until he pulled out a bowl of salmon wrapped in clingfilm with a noise of triumph.

"Now if you'll excuse me,” he said as he closed the fridge door and pulled on his leather jacket, “I have a stray cat to feed. I would really appreciate it if you would be somewhere other than here when I get back." Turning on his heel, he marched out the door before he changed his mind and yelled, "And fix my broken lock!" back into the apartment. The door slammed shut. And then swung open again. The lock was still quite broken, after all.

Mycroft stayed deep in thought as he finished his tea, doing his best to ignore Dumbledore’s glare from the mug’s surface. While Colin had guessed his intentions eerily well, he had missed something crucial that was still bothering the elder Holmes. The files he had Anthea pull on Colin were damn near empty. There was a birth certificate, documents to show where he got his degrees and paycheques for his jobs, but apart from that there was nothing. The ordinary man had credit cards and a smartphone, he visited the doctor and sometimes he pulled sickies- he was identifiable in group shots with friends, in the backgrounds of tourist photos, hell, the average Brit couldn’t refrain from commenting on at least a couple websites or buying tickets to the match or interacting, somewhere, with something that would track him. Not this one. It was like he didn’t exist at all. When Mycroft had tried to pull more information, he had gotten a phone call from his superior giving him an immediate cease and desist order. Considering the number of people that held more power than him in the British empire could be counted on one hand, that had sent his alarm bells ringing. Hell, count his entire alarm system on full alert, flashing lights and all. Who was this man? 

After several minutes of rumination, he finally came to a decision and pulled out his phone to make a call. Sherlock picked up straight away, for once. "Well?" 

"He's clear." 

"What do you mean he's clear?” he spat out, “There's another us walking around Mycroft you realise what he could d-"

"Of course I realise, brother, you don’t have to tell me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. Why did all their conversations devolve to shouting matches or steely silence? “Although his file is- suspiciously sparse, he does not seem dangerous. He left to feed a stray cat for god’s sake, he doesn’t exactly scream maniacal mastermind.” When Sherlock didn't respond, he continued. "I'll place him under surveillance, but that’s all that I’m willing do." More silence. "Look, I'm not happy about this either but you're just going to have to put up with him. A little competition never hurt anyone." Sherlock said nothing. After a moment or two he hung up without a word.   
  
Mycroft sighed and lowered his phone. He was used to having conversations with silence as a reply, and Sherlock hanging up on him wasn't new either. That didn't bother him. No, the reason he was gripping the phone tightly between his fingers was his mounting frustration. If his brother could stay out of this matter for more than two bloody minutes he could do some real digging. It had been so long since he had truly exercised- his intellect of course, he was flawless in every other capacity and anyone who claimed otherwise was misinformed. He felt his phone buzz in his fist as an _error_ message popped up on the screen. Relinquishing his grip, he slipped the device into his pocket and rose to his feet. Striding towards the door with his mind already formulating a plan, he instinctively licked his lips. Colin, or whoever he was really was, made a damn good cup of tea.

***

Colin himself trudged down the damp side alley, instinctively clutching the bowl of salmon closer to his chest. The light was rapidly draining out of the sky, giving way to a vast tapestry of navy blue that unfurled across the sky and lengthened shadows until each was deep enough to swallow a man. Colin’s feet slowed to a stop as he craned his neck to catch glimpses of it bordered by buildings on either side, thankful for the magic aided glimpses he got at the stars otherwise too dim for human eyes. This was one view he would never get sick of. Empires could rise and fall, civilisations could be wiped off the face of the earth, but the stars remained. Oh sure, the names could and would change. The Heavenly Shepherd became Frigg's Distaff, became the Cosmic Dancer, became Orion, but no matter what name he went by, each January he rose and each March Scorpio succeeded in driving him below the horizon. The hunt went on.

Colin shook his head and pulled his jacket closer to himself. Without the heat of the sun the warmth in the air was disappearing, drawing his breath out in visible puffs. He shivered. Find the cat, give it food, don’t be tempted to let it stay the night _don’t do it goddamn it-_

He was drawn out of his thoughts by a soft mewl at his feet. Looking down, his eyes met large green ones that looked up at him curiously. Well, that was step one of his plan completed. Colin crouched down and held out his hand for the cat to rub itself against. A soft purr broke the silence of the alleyway as it bumped its head against his palm. “You always seem to find me, don’t you girl?” he murmured, getting a soft _mew_ as a response. Retracting his hand, he went to uncover the bowl. “I hope you like sa-” he started before looking up and realising his feline friend had retreated and was now slinking around the corner.

Chasing after her, he followed her around the corner and- of course she was sitting on his fire escape, three floors up. How did she even know that one was his? He had never even stepped foot up there before she’d turned up! The little brat had an expectant look on her face, staring down at him. He refused to yield, setting the bowl at his feet. This was not his cat, dammit! She jumped own in one fluid motion, brushing against his ankles before deigning to lap at the food as Colin watched indulgently -err, as Colin watched, not at all satisfied and in fact vaguely annoyed. He spent a ludicrous amount of his meagre paycheque on his illogical attachment to the stray cat that had followed him from one side of London to the other, blinking up at him and sneaking into his bedroom through windows he was beyond certain he had locked before he left.

She finished in her own time and leaped up the fire escape, looking down at him as if to say, _are you coming or what?_ He released a hard worn sigh and began to climb after her. “I’m not buying you anything,” he warned as he opened the door for her. She brushed past him on her way in. “You’re on your own!” he tried again, eliciting roughly the same reaction as the first time- that is to say, none.

The cat sat down on the end of his bed, plonking herself down on his favourite sweater and kneading at it. Colin winced as he watched her claw the fabric, but didn’t move to stop her. She stared up at him with wide, imperious eyes, as if saying _yeah, right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cat wouldn't let me call the chapter "Make a house a ho(l)me(s) with one simple hack: getting stalked". Only in our hearts - Hat 
> 
> Remember the time when Hat nearly gave away the cat reveal in the comments last chapter? That was a fun time. Fun fact, in the og draft I gave Colin an immortal Irish Wolfhound, not a cat. He was meant to keep Colin company as he stayed alive through the millennia, a constant companion when Colin gave up on humanity. Then I killed him (oopsies). This was met with general outrage, so I scrapped it. (Never fear- we have a very cool plan for our kitty here too. Maybe less bullet wounds in her flank though.) - Cat
> 
> In my defence I’m bad at secrets and I was just after a long debate about how AWESOME my name for the kitty was, leave me be - Hat


	6. The one where John does epic battle with a self checkout machine, does his best and, as usual, goes completely unthanked for it

John cursed loudly. This was his second time in Tesco today, with a pathetic number of attempts and subsequent failures to pay at the self-check-out under his belt. He jammed Sherlock's card into the slot for what seemed like the millionth time (in reality it was only the twelfth). There were several beats of tense silence where John prayed for divine intervention to save him from the hellscape he stood in. He had never quite felt the slow humiliation that the self-checkout line provided him with. Too many hours in the desert being fed slop had left John with little patience for this sort of unfortunate, humdrum normality, and even less for the judgemental eyes he felt on him as the lights beep, beep, beeped. If Satan was taking suggestions for new torture methods, this was his top contender (closely followed by being stuck in a house with a stir-crazy Sherlock. As a medical professional he could assure you would decrease your life span by at least twenty years).

The card was once again spat out with a gratingly chirpy “Sorry, an error occurred. Please try again!” John closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wishing not for the first time that punching a machine was socially acceptable. Grabbing the card, he muttered threats of violence under his breath as he glared at it in defeat. Left with no way to pay for groceries, he was about to give up when a familiar voice called out. "All ok?” Turning with a start, John saw a familiar face at the machine over from him. A familiar face he had not encountered since his last case with Sherlock. A familiar face he had managed to have an actual normal interaction with and made a good impression on. Oh God.

"Colin!” a panicked half yelp escaped John’s mouth before reeling himself in with a controlled breath. He would _not_ embarrass himself in front of the only person that had nice to him in the last month. He would be a normal, nonchalant human being. “No, I'm fine.” He smiled tensely, feeding the card into the slot with a silent prayer as he leaned casually against a metallic surface. “It’s just this bloody machine won't- " “Sorry an error occurred. Please try again later!” John was not too proud to admit that in that moment of weakness he slammed his hand against the side of the monitor in anger and let out a cry of anguish and a string of expletives that would have made Molly blush (clearly the actions of a nonchalant, balanced individual). John closed his stinging eyes and took a deep breath. _Don’t have a meltdown over a machine don’t have a meltdown over a machine-_

  
"I know the feeling," Colin said gently, " these modern contraptions can be finickity sometimes." He finished packing his groceries and joined John at his own till. "I have some experience with machines. Maybe I can try to... work my magic?" he offered with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

John suppressed a grateful smile. "Be my guest," he said, trying (and failing) to keep the relief out of his voice. John stepped aside and allowed Colin to go at the machine, presenting Sherlock’s card to his newly proclaimed saviour. Colin scooped up the card and fed it to their machine overlord with a flourish. The machine ate the card with a cheerful _ding!_

  
John stared gobsmacked at Colin. "How did you-? I did the exact same thing!"

Colin just shrugged, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Guess the machine just liked me more.”

John glared at the till. "Suck up,” he muttered as he finished paying for the groceries and returning the hellish card back into his wallet. If he never saw it again, it would be too soon.

"Here, I'll help you with that." Colin chuckled, already reaching for one of John’s three bags.

"You really don't have t-" 

"I insist." Colin grabbed his own bag with his left and John's in his right. "Besides, unless I have the maths grievously wrong, you have three bags but only two arms."

“Fine,” John conceded with a grumble that was entirely superficial. It had been so long since he had a normal, entirely mundane conversation that didn’t revolve around murder and by God had he missed it. “I live in Baker street, about 10 minutes away from here. Is that ok?” he asked, leading Colin out of the supermarket’s automatic doors and onto the busy street.

Colin’s eyes crinkled. “That’s hilarious, I live in that neck of the woods too. I’ll walk you to your door.”

The shop lined lanes turned from white-washed walls to concrete apartments painted with faded graffiti and the lost dreams of too many kids seeking their fortunes in the big city. And, as Colin wrinkled his nose in realisation, quite a few lost lunches. Nonetheless, conversation flowed between the pair with ease.

“Molly mentioned you’re new here,” John started, recalling the snippets of conversation he had heard from the phone on the morning of their first meeting. "So what brings you here? To London, I mean, not Tesco."

Colin looked off into the middle distance as he pulled at the memory. Though the dates didn’t quite match up, he didn’t want to lie to this potential friend. "Well… I never really settled down after I left college. Joined the military. After I was discharged from my last tour, I wanted to rebuild my life again, I suppose.”

Oh, that got John’s attention. "You were in the military?” John asked curiously, his interest piqued.

"Yeah," Colin turned to John, the corner of his mouth upturned. "That's how I knew you served as well. You come to recognise military after a while, I suppose.” In reality it wasn’t tricky to figure out at all, Colin mused internally. Some people may have minor indicators for military history, but not John. John had military written all over him, from the march that leaked into his step to the way his back sprung ram rod straight when he had been caught unawares.

An incredulous smile spread across John’s face. “That’s amazing! I haven’t met another military person since I moved here. Where did you serve?”

“Oh here and there, but it was Iraq right before I was discharged.” Of course in reality that had been a century ago. Not that John needed to know that. “Finished my medical studies before I enlisted.” Gaius’ teachings weren’t too far from medicine if you squinted, right? “After I couldn’t imagine quite imagine practicing –dealing with patients, watching them suffer…” A flurry of images bombarded him, friends bleeding out in front of him, blank eyes, bodies going limp in his arms again and again- “failing to save them. I saw the pathologist job up for grabs in St. Bart’s, once I came back.” Colin’s bright blue eyes darkened a shade. “I’m better at the dead then I am at the living I suppose.”

“I’m finding it hard to go back to normal doctoring myself,” John admitted quietly. Sometimes, when he slipped and stopped paying attention, he could hear his friend’s heartbeats stop when he held a stethoscope to a patient’s chest. John shook his head to clear his thoughts, again. “Civilian life isn’t so bad though,” he amended. “Sherlock’s helped a lot. He’s been a good friend.”

Colin raised a single eyebrow, remembering their less then cordial interaction when they had last encountered. John snorted before explaining. “I mean he’s pompous and annoying as hell, and God knows that I have never wanted to strangle a human being more in my entire life,” he paused, “but once you get through that he’s actually bearable. I owe him.”

Pausing to readjust the bags in his hands, John glanced around and to his surprise found a familiar door standing to his left. Guess he had been too caught up in the conversation to notice his return into his neighbourhood. “Speaking of Sherlock, this is our flat,” he gestured to the black door on their left with a bag laden hand.

Colin whistled appreciatively. “That is one cool door knocker,” he mused, untangling the straps of John’s bag. “In that case, I’ll give you this,” he handed John his other bag, “and bid you farewell.” He smiled a goodbye and turned to go. A spike of alarm shot through John. This was the one (relatively) normal person he had met since Sherlock, he was not going to let him walk away a second time dammit. “Wait, Colin,” he called out. The younger man turned to his name. John shifted his weight, suddenly unsure if he was crossing a boundary. No. He needed to this. He had survived the trials of the self checkout, he could ask a potential friend to meet up again. Now what to ask... “Do you want to meet up for drinks sometime?” he tried. 

“Thought you’d never ask.” Colin grinned. John tried not to feel proud at that. “Will I give you my number?”

“That is an excellent idea.” John supplied, trying to play off that he had completely forgotten the fact they would need to actually get into contact to meet up. What was he expecting to do, exchange carrier pigeons? After some awkward shuffling of bags and checking his pockets, John found them empty apart from his wallet. The image of his phone slammed down on the kitchen table in frustration after his first wrestle with the self pay machine this morning sprung into his mind. He closed his eyes and kicked himself internally.

“My phone is in the apartment,” he groaned. Great. He was never going to meet this guy again. So long normal person, it was nice while it lasted. Unless… “If you’re brave enough to face Sherlock again,” he asked tentatively, “you could follow me up while I find it?”

Colin’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “If I can handle a pissed off Molly Hooper, I can handle just about anything.”

Success. “It’ll only take a couple of seconds,” John promised quickly, leading Colin up the stairs. And with that the pair pushed into the apartment, the door with the askew knocker swinging closed behind them.

***

Sherlock was sitting in his armchair when John let himself into the apartment. After the morning he had had, he was taking it easy (or as easy as Sherlock could take it) and writing an essay for his website. He had gotten rid of the knocked out Sikh agent in the back alley with the help of Mrs. Hudson and stashed the dropped sword under the bed. Not the most original of hiding places he’ll admit, but it’s not like John would think him owning a sword was out of character or even surprising if he ever found it. 

What did surprise Sherlock though, was the extra set of footsteps and the extra voice that accompanied John in through the door and up the stairs. As the voices became closer it slowly dawned on him that the person following John had been similarly shadowing his mind, prowling the cobwebbed corners of the genius’ mind palace. Yes, it had been a little over a week since they had last seen each other, but the cat of malcontentment dwelled in the pit of Sherlock’s stomach and lashed out with claws as sharp as the knife that had nearly decapitated him this morning every time the thought of _him._ Whatever feeling this was, there was an abundance and he did not like it. The door creaked open as John swung it open, laughing at something Colin had said. "Hey Sherlock! Guess who I met in the shopping centre?"

  
Is it Satan? Sherlock thought sarcastically, letting the ire seep into his glare. He smiled toothily and breathed "Ah yes, our _friend_ from the crime scene."

  
"Here Colin let me take those bags off you, I’ll bring them into the kitchen and get your tea started." John grabbed the bags, muttering "behave, you" under his breath as he passed Sherlock. 

  
Colin smiled at Sherlock despite his steely gaze. Sherlock decided that glaring a hole though Colin’s head was just a tad too undignified for him and returned his gaze to the essay. Colin gave a sigh of relief. It’s not like he wasn’t used to antagonism -the spectre of Percival dumping cold water on him flickered at the edge of his mind- but he preferred to avoid it. His usual avoidance tactics were making a joke, laughing awkwardly at something insignificant or jumping out a window. Sometimes onto a haystack. Usually unsuccessfully. Seeing as there was nothing to laugh about and his supply of haystacks had steadily dwindled since the industrial revolution, small-talk seemed like his only way to ease the situation. One problem remained. Short of commenting on the weather, Colin had no idea what to talk about.

Silence hung in the air and stalked the duo, poisoning the oxygen and filling their lungs. The clock ticked. Colin’s eyes finally landed on Sherlock’s open laptop. "Oh, are you writing an article for your website?" he stumbled out. Silence scampered into the shadows at his words.

  
Sherlock's jaw muscles tightened in annoyance as he stared at the computer and avoided eye contact. "Indeed I am, how observant of you." He muttered sarcastically.

The clocked tocked. Silence started to creep out again.

"What's this one about…?" Colin asked tentatively.

Growing more annoyed, Sherlock met Colin’s gaze in the hope that it would shut him up. "How to identify people, their habits and their personality according to their perfume." 

  
"Oh. Interesting." Silence stretched like a cat and padded out towards Sherlock’s feet. "I personally can’t stand the stuff. My skin gets really irritated and red if it comes into contact with it,” Colin blurted out. He shifted on his feet, trying once again to restart the shambles of their conversation. “So, what can you tell from me?" 

  
"That your _sensitive_ skin gets red and irritated by perfume" Sherlock hissed. Silence curled up at his feet as he returned to his quiet brooding. Colin sighed at his failed attempt at trying to connect. Check polite conversation off the list. He was about to ask Sherlock if he happened to be related to a Pendragon (stubbornness was hereditary after all) when John saved him by swooping back into the room.

“That’s your tea,” John handed him a mug of tea Colin gripped it like a lifeline and happily took a deep sip as John fumbled with the lock on his phone. “And that’s my phone.” He finished, handing the now open phone to Colin who mindlessly typed in his number and struggled to swallow the hot liquid. A shrill ringtone broke their conversation. Sherlock picked up immediately and went to the window, the faint murmur across the line drifting over to the pair’s ears.

John leaned forward and lowered his voice. “So, you free Tuesday night?” he asked quietly when Colin handed his phone back.

“Hmmmmmm no, I have the late shift that evening,” Colin whispered back, “What about Monday?”

John winced and shook his head. “Meeting my sister for dinner.”

Just then Sherlock hung up the phone and called out, “John! We have a case.”

Colin's eyes warmed at the way that John’s face lit up at the words. “Text me?” he asked when John turned back to him.

“Sure.”

“John!” Sherlock called as he pulled on his coat.

“Well… I’d better go, then.” Colin said as he took one more gulp of tea before setting it down on the counter. Heading out the door that Sherlock was currently holding open under the false pretence of politeness, he called out over his shoulder, “Talk to you later John.”

He then directed a warm smile at Sherlock, which contrasted Sherlock’s plastered on a smile that didn’t reach his eyes horribly as his head followed Colin out. John didn’t even try admonishing Sherlock for being rude and sighed in resignation as he pulled on his coat. “What’s this new case so?”

Sherlock’s fake smile fell as true warmth entered his eyes with a little spark of excitement. “Someone’s broken into a bank.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just incase you were wondering, this is when the fic lines up with the Blind Banker episode in show. Worry not though, it won't be the same as the Sherlock cannon plotline because now we have a very reluctant Colin roped into the mystery. Expect fight scenes, magic, and a massive helping of angst (I did warn you). See ya'll there ; ) - Cat
> 
> I have nothing to add BUT if you fancy the feeling of the encroaching void, Harry Potter style, check out my new fic because god has cursed me for my hubris - Hat
> 
> Unrelated I just realised our chapter titles keep getting longer and longer. Why are we doing this? Who knows. We certainly don't - Cat (by fallout boy - Hat)


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